Our Urban Town a Publication of the Staten Island Urban CenterOur Urban Town is a quarterly publication that shares thought provoking, intellectually provocative, community news, ideas and opinions from Staten Island's urban neighborhoods.

#reSIStah issue​in celebration of women's history month

​the Woke reSIStah Issue Our Urban Town publishes thought provoking ideas, intellectually provocative reflections, community news, and opinions from the very people in the community who passionately live and/or work with these issues. In this Woke ReSistah Issue, Our Urban Town shares the writings of women activists on Staten Island as a tribute to the contributions of women right now in this borough. Due to space constraints, these are just a small sample of women activists doing the work on the island, but our hope is that these writings inspire readers to be or continue to be activists, to share real stories, advocate for real solutions and to fight for real for the things they believe in. In the era of WOKE and RESIST, it’s our time to be activists everywhere we go and in everything we do.Kelly Vilar,​Editor of Our Urban Town & ​CEO of Staten Island Urban Center

​My name is Priscilla Marco, and I have been the President of the Van Duzer Street Civic Association in Stapleton for the last six years. Our Civic Association is 12 years old and was born out of frustration with speeding traffic along Van Duzer Street, a narrow one lane running along a mostly residential community which had been a two lane horse carriage dirt road from St. George to other parts of Staten Island in the late 1800s.Stapleton has a long history of Civic activism, and for being an open and tolerant community. St. Pauls Avenue runs from Victory Blvd into Van Duzer Street going away from the Ferry and St. George, but Van Duzer Street also runs towards St. George from Targee Street. During the instability in the housing market after 2008, we had concerns about foreclosures and squatters and speculation, leading to increased crime and other quality of life concerns. Homeowners who were more recent arrivals like myself did not know how to navigate the small town nature of Staten Island politics and longtime residents were older and did not feel that their voices were being heard.We decided to band together to demand better services from local government, which started with requesting traffic lights and calming measures along Van Duzer Street. We began to have success in getting speed recorders, traffic lights, and lane configurations from the SI Department of Transportation. From this success we expanded our focus to include having representatives from the 120 Pct attend all our meetings to address individual concerns about prostitution, drug selling and noise.

For the last year, as our Civic membership has expanded, we have been reaching out to the NYC Department of City Planning, realizing that tremendous changes are coming with the proposed re-zoning of parts of Bay Street. We believe that these developments will have an impact for more than the immediate area, bringing greater population and challenges to our area. We meet monthly, which provides both city governmental agencies and Stapleton residents with a clearing house for information as well as a place to express opinions and concerns. We strive to hear all voices, but recently we have been concerned that there is no real plan for the area, other than for real estate interests and commercial landlords to speculate on the value of their property. We have pleaded for traffic agents to be assigned to manage the truck and vehicular traffic which is already backing up on Bay Street after Victory Blvd, before the Outlets, the Wheel and the Lighthouse Pointe hotels arrive, to no avail. City officials seem to believe that the school seats are sufficient for the population that we already have, but seem content to wait until thousands more move to Bay Street and surrounding areas before addressing the need for new schools.The 120 Precinct is situated in St. George in an antiquated building that they were supposed to move from 4 years ago, until city government changed the budget. The 120 Precinct is the busiest precinct in all of Staten Island, with the highest incidents of violent and property crime, not to mention drug selling. Can they handle what is to come?The Van Duzer Street Civic Association is the only group recognized to represent concerns of large numbers of Stapleton residents. We are not satisfied that what will be presented to the community in October, 2016 as the city’s plan for development of Bay Street will address these concerns, despite our efforts to work with government. We plan to join with neighboring Civic Associations and other groups to demand a plan with specifics, a plan which shows the costs involved, a plan that is truly designed with our community in mind.